22 Iraqis, two U.S. soldiers die in attacks

Published: Monday, July 25, 2005

ASSOCIATED PRESS

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A suicide bomber detonated a truck packed with explosives outside a Baghdad police station Sunday, killing at least 22 people in the country's deadliest attack in a week. Separate attacks killed a U.S. soldier and a Marine, the U.S. military said.

The attack on the Rashad police station in the eastern neighborhood of Mashtal came during a blinding sandstorm. Security barricades prevented the bomber from reaching the station, but the huge blast destroyed two dozen cars and damaged nearby shops.

Police and hospital officials said 22 people - most of them civilians - were killed and about 30 were injured. The U.S. military, citing initial Iraqi police reports, said 40 people were killed, but police said they were uncertain where that figure came from.

It was the deadliest attack in Iraq since a suicide bomber blew himself up July 16 near a Shiite mosque in the central city of Musayyib, igniting a fuel tanker and killing nearly 100 people.

Elsewhere, gunmen killed the leader of the city council in the insurgent-riddled city of Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, police said. Council chairman Taha al-Hinderah and a companion were gunned down as they walked in the Albu Rahman neighborhood Sunday evening, police Capt. Laith Mohammed said.

In Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, insurgents emptied fuel from two tanker trucks on the Muthanna Bridge across the Tigris River and set it on fire, police said. Two people were wounded in clashes that followed.

Six policemen also were killed Sunday in scattered attacks in Baghdad and Kirkuk, officials reported. Gunmen in Kirkuk also killed an Iraqi soldier and wounded six people, police said.